Written by Huda Ramli, Translated by Jeremy Lim. Originally published in Jurnal Sang Pemula.
Introduction: The Trap of Feminism’s Waves
When feminism is discussed in Malaysia, the question that often recurs is: which wave does this feminism belong to? Is it the first, second, third, or fourth wave? Such questions seem simple, but in fact they are the trap that keeps feminism constantly on the defensive. They divert the discussion from the core of feminism, which is awareness and the fight against discrimination, to questions of categories, labels, and boxes.
The rejection of feminism in Malaysia often starts here: by asking feminists “which wave are you in,” then finding the weaknesses of each wave as a reason to reject the whole. The first wave is said to be too liberal, the second wave is too angry, the third wave is too confused, the fourth wave is rejected because it is considered to make room for LGBTQ. But the truth is, feminism never stops moving because discrimination never stops existing.
This phenomenon shows how feminism is always questioned excessively compared to other disciplines. We never question Marxists with questions like: “What wave are you in?” We know that Marxism has various streams; Leninism, Trotskyism, Gramscianism, but its basic values are clear: material reality, labor value, and historical dialectics. The same goes for socialism, liberalism, or other ideologies; all develop, branch, and debate, but are never rejected outright because of a particular “current”.
Feminism, on the other hand, has repeatedly been forced to answer questions of form and evolution. Whereas the essence of feminism is not a box of categories, but a lens that questions the world. It is a discipline of consciousness based on lived experiences of discrimination and marginalization, not a frozen “ism.”
If you want to understand, the wave of feminism is simply a benchmark of consciousness in its time.
- The first wave was born because at a time when formal rights belonged only to men.
- The second wave emerged from the realization that gender oppression was deeply embedded in everyday domains such as the body, work, and family.
- The third wave expanded the voice to diverse identities, resisting the homogenization of “women.”
- The fourth wave emphasized intersectionality, the digital world, and the visibility of LGBTQ issues.
However, waves are not absolute boundaries. They only mark certain stages of struggle. When one problem is addressed, awareness moves to other problems that are still left behind. So feminism is a continuum, not a box.
Feminism as a Lens of the Oppressed and Grounded Philosophy
What distinguishes feminism from other ideologies is its starting point. Liberalism begins with the ideal of individual freedom; socialism emphasizes collective ownership; Marxism centers on material reality and the working class. Feminism, on the other hand, is born from an awareness of oppression. It asks: who is oppressed, how is discrimination experienced, and why is that experience erased?
This is why feminism was the earliest lens to expose systemic discrimination. It asserted that the world had been shaped for centuries by the experiences of cisgender men, and was then considered “universal.” Feminism opened the door to recognizing that those experiences were not universal. The experiences of women, queers, and other marginalized groups needed to be seen as part of the reality of humanity.
Intersectionality reinforces this lens. A person’s identity is not determined solely by gender, but intersects with class, ethnicity, religion, or orientation. Feminism helps to uncover aspects of discrimination that other lenses cannot explain. Marxism can explain class poverty, but it often fails to capture how gender or sexuality discrimination deepens the gap. Feminism adds dimensions that are omitted from traditional analyses.
Feminism is also not a philosophy invented from intellectual privilege. It is a grounded philosophy, a philosophy rooted in the awareness of oppression and conscience. It was born not from abstract theory, but from real suffering that demands answers and solutions.
This is where feminism claims itself as a lens of justice. It does not come to compete with other “isms,” but to correct their blind spots. It reminds us that justice cannot be established through grand theories alone; it must be born from the experiences of the oppressed. Feminism is a voice reminding the world that there is no justice without listening to the silenced.
The gendered lens of oppression makes LGBT and queer issues one of the branches included by feminism, and it also makes feminism a taboo and forbidden subject to the point of being disavowed by many Then it is not uncommon for us to see many justifying the rejection of feminism because “fourth wave feminism” is often rooted in LGBTQ visibility. But if feminism is consistent as a lens of the oppressed and discrimination, then the LGBTQ experience is valid: they also experience the oppression of gendered reality. And this rejection only further validates the experience of oppression of LGBT and queer people because it is the way their identity, experience and reality are tried to be erased from consciousness, both the consciousness of society and the consciousness of this group itself. It is a form of gaslighting.
To ignore them is to deny one of the most profound forms of discrimination of our time. A feminism that rejects this experience has betrayed its own fundamental principles.
Mary Wollstonecraft and the Corrective Lens
This is where Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the philosophers and founders of modern feminism, comes in. In A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she wrote that patriarchy not only oppresses women, but also makes women “evil.” Not because they are inherently evil, but because in order to survive in an oppressive system, they are forced to internalize patriarchy and perpetuate it.
Wollstonecraft’s analysis is of the English middle and upper class women in her environment. The beginning was that women were taught and believed to be fragile beings with weak minds, and were only socialized to work that did not involve serious reason and intellect, such as domestic work and things that focused on beauty and self-beautification.
Then these women, after marriage, are denied love and agency and end up becoming tyrant mothers, oppressing their children without loving care. They continue to nurture toxic masculinity in their sons and treat their daughters as inferior to them, raising them without tenderness. Wollstonecraft shows that patriarchy corrupts both genders: men become tyrannical with power, women become tyrannical because they are deprived of love and are denied common sense and knowledge.
For Wollstonecraft, feminism brings three important principles:
- The fundamental equality of men and women — equal cognitively, equal morally, equal as human beings.
- The awareness of systemic discrimination — that oppression shapes men and women in different but mutually detrimental ways.
- The corrective lens — feminism comes to correct this situation, not just point fingers. Men and women are equally responsible for dismantling patriarchy.
Wollstonecraft, in other words, positions feminism as a corrective philosophy. It not only demands rights, but also demands that humans return to justice as true human beings.
Conclusion: Feminism Will Live On
If asked, which wave is Malaysian feminism? My answer: everywhere it is not about any wave, but awareness. Feminism is a living discipline, a philosophy rooted in real suffering, and a corrective lens that demands continuous correction. As long as there is awareness of the awareness of oppression whether in conservative, liberal or progressive women, those are the seeds of feminism in human beings.
Therefore, as long as there is discrimination, as long as there is marginalization, as long as there is perceived injustice, feminism will live on. Because its purpose is not a category, not a label, not a wave. Its purpose is justice.
This essay is a continuation of Huda Ramli’s response about Feminism during a forum held by Kuliah Buku entitled ‘Islam, Anarchists and Feminists I Believe’ on 31 August 2025 at Biblio Press Petaling Jaya. The recording of this forum is available on Facebook (Kuliah Buku).
Huda Ramli is a feminist activist and academic researcher focusing on gender, religion, social and political issues. She is one of the founders of Jurnal Sang Pemula, a youth intellectual activism collective that focuses on humanist and emancipatory Malay discourse, and actively writes on various social and humanitarian issues. Nurhuda is currently pursuing her MPhil at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. She holds a BA in Arabic Language and Literature from the International Islamic University Malaysia. Previously, she served as a program officer at a Muslim women’s rights organization where she built a network of resistance to religious conservatism and expanded public discourse on the issue of religious conservatism and its challenges and impacts on society.